Autobiography of catherine lim singapore author

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Library resources about Catherine Lim. Resources in your library Resources in other libraries. In "Father and Son," a man alienates and disowns his once-treasured son. Lim also addresses family ties in Three Gifts from the Green Dragon and Other Stories from Chinese Literature, a short-story collection intended for children which features Lim's adaptations of traditional Chinese folktales.

The stories include the tale of Han Zi and his father and grandfather and another about Yue Guo and his lazy brother. Other stories address economic, class, and gender issues. A reviewer for Books for Keeps praised Three Gifts from the Dragon, calling it "delightfully compact," suitable "for teaching purposes or simple sheer enjoyment.

Autobiography of catherine lim singapore author

Lim's style, as evidenced in Little Ironies, is considered deceptively simple, as it describes commonplace occurrences in an understandable manner. World Literature Today contributor John Kwan-Terry remarked that "although lacking in subtlety, [the language in Little Ironies ] avoids pretentiousness and annoying flourishes and sounds very much like someone actually recounting an interesting anecdote.

The Serpent's Tooth centers on an extended Chinese family in Singapore, particularly the protagonist, Angela, and her mother-in-law. Angela exemplifies the modern, English-speaking Singapore resident with material aims, while her mother-in-law lives the traditional Chinese way of life by maintaining reverence for ancestors and ancient rituals.

Lim portrays each extreme as flawed in its own way. Neither set of values modern or traditional is seen as being above reproach. The Bondmaid tells the story of Han, a little girl who is sold into slavery in s-era Singapore. As she grows to maturity, Han falls in love with her master, a young man with whom she has grown up. Despite her strong will and determination, Han faces bitterness and betrayal as she seeks to fulfill her love.

Lim self-published The Bondmaid rather than edit some of the sexual and political content in the story, and when the book was finally released by a mainstream publisher, it became a bestseller. Margaret Flanagan in Booklist called the work "a heartrending tale of love, exploitation, and betrayal. This marked a precedent for Catherine, as she became the first Singaporean author to have a serialised e-novella.

In the same year, The Straits Times featured the book as one of its 10 classic Singapore books. An ardent feminist, Catherine is also considered an outspoken social and political commentator, having made radio and television appearances in Singapore, Australia and Europe. Absorbing, enduring interest in the Chinese culture of my childhood; aware of my unusual position as an English-educated Chinese writing in English, with a perspective inevitably coloured by the fact of straddling two worlds.

Catherine Lim's writing is fuelled by the energies of incongruities, incongruities that power themes including clashes between generations and cultures, the disparity of attitudes and lifestyles found amongst various income-groups, and the discrepancy between the society's ever-improving economic profile and its state of moral poverty.

While the themes are large ones, they are expressed within a context of the mundane, in terms of the bric-a-brac of everyday life which lend these themes concreteness and believability. The authorial voice is generally ironic though not uncompassionate, the irony exploiting the territory between differing levels of awareness e. Lim, however, seldom intrudes judgement; action is allowed to serve as its own comment, and the discrepancies, blandly presented, e.

The Serpent's Tooth brings together many of the concerns treated of separately in the short stories. As its reference to King Lear makes clear, it is on one level about ingratitude and thankless children. But more importantly, it is about the tensions born of the different assumptions and perspectives brought to bear upon things and events, by the main character, Angela and her mother-in-law, and to a lesser extent, by other members of the extended family.

The one stands for the modern, English-speaking Singaporean, for whom money stands in place of culture, the other is an adherent of traditional Chinese beliefs and practices, impervious to change in the world around. They are each other's serpents, each seeing the other as the cause of separation from her child, each making life intolerable for the other, yet ironically unaware of her own shortcomings and insensitivity.